Hi Gerson, I'm assuming you ...

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Hi Gerson, I'm assuming you have an African transboundary river in mind.  There are usually several levels of cooperation on rivers and there are examples where the waters have been 'apportioned' or shared on a volumetric or percentage basis or other basis.  But cooperation is not always straight-forward.  There is the political level which must be engaged if any sharing or cooperation can succeed.  There could national and sub-national levels.  There is an administrative level or element where government officials need to work together, there is a technical level, where joint studies and information sharing is agreed to, and there can be an operation level, where waters are controlled by various schemes such as power generation, water supply, irrigation and so on, and where these affect cross-border water flow.  Remember that upstream countries (China is a good example) are alway less interested in cooperating than downstream ones, but this is not an absolute rule.

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Hello Paul,

As you have rightly pointed out, It is true most Upstream countries are always less interested in cooperation than Downstream countries. What are reasons to explain this?

Gerson Fumbuka

 

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It's obvious Gershon.  Upstream countries have more to lose by agreeing to share the resources.  Downstream countries can sometimes act to affect upstream water resources, but in general they can't' do that.   But upstream countries with the capacity dam, divert and pollute rivers can and will affect any downstream country by what they do.  So long as there is no legal obligation on them to take downstream conditions into account they cannot be forced to act responsibly, only persuaded to 'do the right thing' or to act if there is another lever to pressure them.  China is the upstream example - all the major rivers flow out to downstream countries, which is why China refused (along with Turkey and Albania) to sign the UN convention on international watercourses.  Sometimes upstream countries want to be seen ads good neighbours, but does that lead to significant concessions on their part?  Consider Ethiopia, for instance, and the Nile.  

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